During the First World War, Maulana Mahmood Hasan, and other Islamic scholars planned an armed attack on British India from the Afghanistan frontier. The ambitious plan did not succeed because of the changed geo-political scenario (defeat of Turkey and Germany) and the British getting hold of three silk letters, which gave away the whole planning. After this, 59 people were charged for waging the war against the crown. I am sharing the names of these 59 forgotten heroes of the Indian freedom struggle.
During the First World War, Maulana Mahmood Hasan, and other Islamic scholars planned an armed attack on British India from the Afghanistan frontier. The ambitious plan did not succeed because of the changed geo-political scenario (defeat of Turkey and Germany) and the British getting hold of three silk letters, which gave away the whole planning.
After this, 59 people were charged for waging the war against the crown. I am sharing the names of these 59 forgotten heroes of the Indian freedom struggle.
Silk Letter Movement : A freedom struggle woven in silk
Abdul Aziz Molvi, son of Haya Gul from Itman Zai, Peshawar
Abdul Bari B.A., son of Ghulam Jilani from Lyallpur
Abdul Hai Khwaja, son of Khwaja Abdur Rahman from Gurdaspur
Abdul Haq Shaikh alias Jeewan Das from Shahpur district. He was an official witness.
Abdul Haq Molvi from Rifah-e-Aam Press Lahore.
Abdul Majeed Khan, son of a Risaldar Manager from the 15th Cavalry Battalion of the army.
Abdullah Molvi, son of Nihal Khan from Sukkur district. He was an official witness.
Abdul Qadir B.A., son of Ahmad Deen from Lyallpur.
Abdur Rahim Sindhi Shaikh, son of Lala Bhagwan Das from Hyderabad, Sindh
Abdur Rahim Molvi, son of Rahim Bakhsh, Masjid Cheenian Wali, Lahore.
Abdur Rashid, a migrant student of Mardan and Lahore.
Abdur Razzaq Ansari Hakim, son of Abdur Rahman of Delhi.
Abdul Waahid, son of Siddiq Ahmad from Tanda, United Provinces.
Abul Kalam Azad Molvi, nickname Mohiuddin, son of Maulana Khairuddin from Calcutta
Abu Muhammad Ahmad Molvi alias Molvi Ahmad, son of Ghulam Hussain from Lahore and Chakwal
Ahmad Ali Molvi, son of Habibullah, from Gujranwala district. He was an official witness.
Ahmad Miyan Molvi, son of Abdullah Ansari from Ambetha, district Saharanpur (United Provinces). He was an official witness.
Allah Nawaz Khan, son of Khan Bahadur Rab Nawaz Khan honorary magistrate of Multan, Punjab
Anees Ahmad, B.A. Molvi, son of Idrees Ahmad, assistant secretary at Anglo-Oriental College Aligarh , United Provinces.
Ozair Gul Molvi, son of Shaheed Gul of Durgayee, Northwest Frontier.
Barkatullah Molvi Muhammad of Bhopal and Japan
Fatah Muhammad Sindhi from Rok, Sindh
Fazlul Hasan Molvi alias Hasrat Mohani from Aligarh .
Fazl Elahi Molvi, son of Meeran Bakhsh from Haripur, thana Wazirabad, district Gujranwala, Punjab.
Fazl Mahmood Molvi, son of Molvi Noor Muhammad from Charsadda, Northwest Frontier.
Fazl Rabbi Molvi from Peshawar.
Fazl Wahid Molvi, son of Faiz Ahmad, alias Haji Turangzai, from Northwest Frontier.
Habibullah Ghazi, the son of Ruhullah from Kakori, district Lucknow, United Province.
Hadi Hasan Syed, from Khan Jahanpur, district Muzaffar Nagar, United Province.
Hamdullah Molvi, son of Haji Sirajuddin from Panipat.
Hussain Ahmad Madani Molvi, son of Molvi Habibullah from Faizabad and Medina .
Ibrahim Sindhi, M.A. Shaikh, son of Abdullah from Karachi.
Kala Singh, a migrant from Ludhiana (Punjab)
Khan Muhammad Khan Haji from Peshawar. (died)
Khushi Muhammad, son of Jan Muhammad from Talauli, district Jalandhar, Punjab.
Mahendra Pratap Kunwar, son of late Raja Ghanshiam Singh from Mursan, United Province.
Mahmood Hasan Maulana, former head-teacher at Deoband Madrasa, United Province.
Matloobur Rahman Molvi of Deoband, an employee of the Agricultural Department, UP Govt.
Mohiuddin alias Barkat Ali Molvi from Kasur.
Mohiuddin Khan Molvi from Moradabad. (Qazi of Bhopal)
Muhammad Abdullah B.A., son of Shaikh Abdul Qadir, Secretary Mianwali District Board.
Muhammad Ali B.A. son of Abdul Qadir from Kasur.
Muhammad Ali Sindhi, the son of Habibullah from Gujranwala.
Muhammad Aslam Attar from Peshawar.
Muhammad Hasan B.A. from Lahore whose father was an employee in the Paisa newspaper.
Muhammad Hashim Molvi Syed from Kora, Jahanabad, Fatahpur.
Muhammad Masood Molvi, son of Mazhar Hussain from Deoband, United Province. (Official witness)
Muhammad Miyan Molvi, son of Molvi Abdullah Ansari from Ambetha, district Saharanpur, United Province.
Muhammad Mubeen Molvi, son of Muhammad Momin from Deoband. (Official witness)
Muhammad Murtuza Molvi Syed, son of Bunyad Ali from Bijnor, United Province. (Official witness)
Noorul Hasan Syed from Ratheri, district Muzaffar Nagar U.P.
Obaidullah Molvi alias Buta Singh from Sialkot, Punjab.
Sadruddin alias Dr. Abdul Karim Barlasi, son of Amir Ali of Banaras.
Saifur Rahman Molvi, son of Ghulam Khan from Peshawar district, Northwest Frontier.
Shah Bakhsh Haji, son of Imam Bakhsh Ansari from Hyderabad, Sindh.
Shah Nawaz Khan, son of Khan Bahadur Rab Nawaz Khan, honorary magistrate, Multan, Punjab.
Shujaullah, son of Habibullah from Lahore.
Wali Muhammad Molvi from Futuheewala, district Lahore.
Zahoor Muhammad Molvi from Roorkee, son of Inayatullah of Saharanpur.
source: http://www.heritagetimes.in / Heritage Times / Home / by Mahino Fatima / August 04th, 2024
Bomb Blast Acquit Turned Advocate Abdul Wahid Shaikh Awarded PhD at MGM University, Aurangabad
Advocate Abdul Wahid Shaikh, noted lawyer, prison rights activist, and the first person person acquitted in the 2006 Mumbai train blast case, was conferred with a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree at MGM University, Aurangabad. The degree was presented by Vice Chancellor Prof. Dr. Vilas Sakpal during a formal convocation ceremony.
Dr. Shaikh’s doctoral research, titled “Prison Literature: Post-Independence”, brings focus to the writings emerging from Indian prisons, highlighting voices of resistance, resilience, and injustice. His work underscores how incarcerated individuals have shaped Urdu literature and contributed to broader narratives of social justice in post-independence India.
Speaking on the occasion, Dr. Shaikh said:“This PhD is not just an academic milestone, but a continuation of my struggle for prison justice. Prison literature is the voice of the silenced, the testimony of those behind bars, and a mirror to our society’s conscience.”
As General Secretary of the Innocence Network, Dr. Shaikh has long campaigned for the release of wrongfully imprisoned individuals and advocated for humane prison reforms. His latest academic achievement strengthens his commitment to legal activism and adds a scholarly dimension to his work.
Faculty members, scholars, students, and well-wishers attended the convocation, applauding Dr. Shaikh’s perseverance and his contribution at the crossroads of academia, activism, and law.
His achievement is a landmark—demonstrating how an exoneree can turn personal suffering into intellectual strength and contribute meaningfully to the pursuit of justice and the rights of the incarcerated.
source: http://www.muslimmirror.com / Muslim Mirror / Home> Positive Story / by Muslim Mirror Special Correspondent / September 29th, 2025
Indian Muslims as a community, due to various social and political influences, have remained educationally backward. The Sachar Committee Report in 2006 revealed the dismal state of education among Muslims. The report was an eye-opener for the community and led to the efforts to spread education among Muslims. Muslims introspected and asked how come a community that believes in “Read with the name of your Lord who created (everything)” – the first Quranic revelation – lagged in education. Not only did the community urge the country’s political leadership to address it but also made efforts to improve the state of affairs.
The efforts have not gone in vain. The data compiled in the Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE) by the Union Ministry of Education, points towards a remarkable increase in school-going Muslims in Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state in India.
Changing trends among Muslims
The UDISE survey reveals that in U.P, 4,53,62,059 students were studying in schools, from pre-nursery to class XII, during the 2019-20 session. Out of these, 70,18,201, or 15.47%, were Muslims. Because the Muslims are 19.26% of the population in the state, this number seems insufficient, which it is. But, if we consider the fact that seven years ago, in the 2012-13 session, out of 4,69,61,179 school-going children only 52,49,664, or 11.18%, were Muslims, the significance of the present numbers becomes evident.
The numbers show that the proportion of Muslims is steadily increasing and moving towards their proportion in the population, i.e. 19.26%. From the 2015-16 session till 2019-20, the percentage of Muslims among school-going children has been registered to be 11.08%, 12.40%, 12.32%, 13.88%, and 15.47% in successive years. If we talk in pure numbers, in 2015-16, there were 53,63,670 Muslim kids out of 4,84,06,853 students. In 2019-20, this figure has increased by more than 16 lakh to reach 70,18,201 as the total school enrolment in the state dropped by more than 30 lakhs.
Graphic explanation of the changing trend in Muslim education-1
In order to understand the recent awakening in the community, one needs to look at the new enrollments. At the entry-level, Muslim students have reached very near to their proportion in the population. In the 2019-20 session, out of 51,48,352 students enrolled in class I, 9,71,229 were Muslims. This translates into 18.86% of the total class I students. It is a significant increase from 2018-19 when 16.92% of class I students were found to be Muslims, and in the year before the ratio was at 16.23%.
The people working in the education sector among the Muslims of U.P often complain about the high dropout rates. As we go up the education levels, the proportion of Muslims tends to decrease. The apprehension is true, but the recent trends show an improvement in Muslim representation in higher classes. The survey found 3,73,304 Muslim students out of a total of 30,73,228 studying in class X, during the 2019-20 session. This makes 12.15% of the total class X students in the state, a significant rise from 2016-17 when only 7.65% of the total class X students were from the community. In the last four academic sessions, the proportion of Muslims in class X is, 7.65%, 8.38%, 10.90%, and 12.15%, successively.
At Higher Secondary (+2), XI & XII, the proportion of Muslims enrolled has increased from 7.24% in the 2016-17 to 10.48% in the 2019-20 session. In successive sessions this proportion has been registered as 7.24% in 2016-17, 7.81% in 2017-18, 10.08% in 2018-19 and 10.48% in 2019-20.
These numbers are no yardstick of the quality of education Muslims are availing. To get an idea we need to look at the type of schools at which these students are enrolled. As a matter of fact, in U.P, it is commonly believed that private schools are in a better condition than schools owned by the Department of Education. Out of the total 2,20,69,303 students enrolled in private schools, 25,95,073, or 11.76%, were found to be Muslims in 2019-20. This was a considerable increase from 2016-17 when 8.07% of the private school students were Muslims. In the last four academic sessions since 2016-17, the Muslim proportion in private schools was found to be 8.07%, 8.48%, 10.38%, and 11.76% respectively.
Changing trends in Muslims’ education Graph-II
On the other hand, in the schools of the Department of Education, Muslim proportion remained more or less constant. In 2016-17, 12.34% of the students at the Department’s schools were Muslims which has shown a marginal increase at 12.50% in 2019-20. Another very important aspect of education among Muslims is that almost one out of every five school-going Muslims attends a Wakf/ Madrasa Board recognized Madrasa/ Maktab. In the 2019-20 session, 19.76% of the Muslim children were enrolled in these Madrasas. It is an increase from 2016-17 when 16.49% of Muslims were attending these institutions. But this shift can be attributed to a positive shift. In 2016-17, 5.31% of Muslim kids were attending unrecognized Madrasas which came down to 3.10% in 2019-20. It is a welcome change that Madrasa-going children are attending recognized Madrasa of Madrasa / Wakf Board instead of unrecognized Madrasas.
Prof. Aquil Ahmed (Statistics & OR), AMU, believes that an increase in enrolments in private schools and status quo in Department of Education’s schools is a pointer that this increase in education among Muslims owes itself to the efforts from within. In recent years, he says that the community has started understanding the importance of education and hence without much help from the government people have started spending on education more and sending their children to schools.
Bhim Rao Ambedkar said that women’s education and empowerment were the yardstick to measure the development of a society. The survey gives us immense hope as we analyze the data on girl students among Muslims. It is an open secret that ours is a patriarchal society. Irrespective of religion or caste, people discriminate against girls. It was not a surprise to see that, in 2019-20, out of 45,39,933 students enrolled in Higher Secondary (+2) in the state, 54.30% were boys and 45.70% were girls. Similarly, in class X, 54.46% of the total students were boys. On a similar pattern, for the same session, 55.17% of students enrolled in private schools were boys during the same session. But, the sweet surprise was the ratio of girls among Muslim students of U.P. In Higher Secondary,
Changing trends in Muslims’ education Graph-III
In 2019-20, 50.31% of the total Muslim students were girls while their proportion was 48.31% in class X. In private schools also enrolment of boys among Muslims was 53.96%. This means, among Muslims, proportionally more girls are being admitted in private schools than the average of the state. This positive approach towards women’s education is a welcome trend.
The survey suggests that Muslims as a community are paying more attention to women’s education. As discussed above, in 2019-20, 10.48% of the total enrolments in Higher Secondary (+2) belonged to the Muslim community. If we look at gender then we find that, in 2019-20, of all the girls enrolled in +2, 12.06% were Muslims while 9.67% of the boys came from the community. This trend is a feature of all the preceding years as well. In 2019-20, in private schools out of all the girls enrolled 12.08% were Muslims while the proportion among boys was 11.50%.
Interestingly, in higher secondary education in private schools, the proportion of Muslims among girls stands at 10.22% while among boys it is 8.94%. In each session we find more Muslim girls taking admissions in higher secondary than Muslim boys. The proportion of Muslims among girls is much higher than their proportion among boys. For class X, in 2019-20, 12.88% of girls were Muslims while among boys they were 11.53%. The trend breaks the stereotype that Muslims do not send their girls to school. Moreover, it shows that Muslims are moving away from the orthodox traditions faster than the other communities.
Prof. Nazura Usmani (AMU), believes that access of younger generations to religious texts has made this women empowerment possible. Muslims, on understanding the true message of religion, are breaking the shackles of traditional orthodoxies, which kept women caged for centuries. Now, people are understanding that women’s education is part of religion and also there is growing acceptance in the community towards economically working women. She says that those people who do not identify themselves with revolutionary feminism are accepting that women should be educated and economically independent.
The UDISE survey report brings out a positive trend of increasing education among Muslims. Though the community is still lagging the developments of recent years instills hope. Moreover, the survey brings out that Muslims are showing more gender parity when it comes to education than other communities.
(Saquib Salim is a Historian and a Writer)
source: http: //www.awazthevoice.in / Awaz, The Voice / Home> Stories / by Saquib Salim / December 09th, 2021
It was a cold day in February 2016. A woman from a small town of Uttar Pradesh received her Ph.D. at the 63rd Annual Convocation of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), Aligarh. She was the first from her clan to have taken admission to AMU in 2003. Her parents never attended college; her four brothers took up family businesses at a younger age. The woman in the discussion is me. I am Mahino Fatima, a Muslim girl from a backward caste who became a scientist against all odds.
pix: heritagetimes.in / Dr. Mahino Fatima
Friends, relatives, and peers celebrated my becoming a scientist as a consequence of my hard work and perseverance. In my heart of hearts, I knew this day has not come only because of me; I was grateful for the privilege of education that I was born with.
Most importantly, I should not forget Fatima Sheikh. If not for her, I would never have become a scientist. Lakhs of women who are successful because of education would have remained illiterate but for Fatima Sheikh’s pioneering work.
How can I, a woman, forget that my foremothers were not allowed to learn how to write? How can I, a backward caste woman, forget that my forefathers were not allowed to receive an education? Today, when we look at our curriculum, we find that women scientists, economists, philosophers, and intellectuals are negligible in comparison to men. Famous philosopher, Jaques Derrida, once remarked that no woman was a philosopher. His observation was true, but he did not delve into the reason. How can a woman become a philosopher when men for centuries controlled the development of her intellectual capacities in the name of culture?
In our society, men would not let women learn the art of writing for the fear that if literate these women would communicate to ‘lovers’ through letters. Bibi Ashraf, a late 19th-century educationist, recalled how she was not allowed to learn reading and writing like male members of her family. She secretly learned to write. The secret came out when during the revolt of 1857; she had to write a letter to her father and uncle. Instead of receiving accolades, she was abhorred by men in her family. Her uncle was furious and made her take an oath that she would never write a letter to a man. Similar was the story of Rassundari Devi, who secretly learned writing by stealing books from her son. How do we expect women scientists in such a society? Still, a large section of our society would not let women study more than what is needed in the ‘marriage market’.
In this society, Fatima Sheikh, along with Savitribai Phule, started a school for girls in 1848. Yes, 1848. 26 years before Sheikh Abdullah, who later founded a women’s college at Aligarh, and 32 years before Begum Rukaiya Sakhawat, doyen of women education, were born, Fatima had started a girls’ school and taught herself. Today, that small classroom of 9 girls has prepared lakhs of educated women.
Today women are asking for gender parity in opportunities and pay scales. Thanks to Fatima, women today are educated to understand their worth and assert their rights.
Fatima was a pioneer; she was followed by Begum Rukaiya, Begum Wahid, Muhammadi Begum. A revolution starts with an idea. Fatima’s was the idea that put women of India in general and Muslim women in particular, on the march to empowerment through education.
Today, I thank Fatima for making me a scientist. Nobody knows how many bright women before 1848 had been deprived of education and were not allowed to dream of becoming a scientist. But, we surely know that after 1848, women have slowly entered different fields through education and are today competing with men to have their rightful place in the books, laboratories, and society.
(Author is a neurobiologist with her major research on depression and Alzheimer’s)
source: http://www.awazthevoice.in / Awaz, The Voice / Home> Stories / by Mahino Fatima / Saquib Salim / January 09th, 2022
Women’s education in nineteenth-century India was no easy task. In the case of Muslim women, the task was even more difficult due to their triply marginal identity: as colonial subjects, as women, and as Muslims. Not only did the custom of purdah added to their seclusion from the social and cultural changes, their men hated everything about the western cultural influence (being displaced as rulers by the British). As a result, the middle class (the initiators of reform) was to develop late among the Indian Muslims than their Hindu counterparts. Nevertheless, by the late nineteenth century, a middle-class among the Indian Muslims was fledging. For this, no institution of the nineteenth-century can be given more commendation than Aligarh Muslim University.
Formed in 1920, the Aligarh Muslim University just completed its hundred years as a modern residential university. There has been a perception that the Aligarh Movement, for whatever reasons, neglected the issue of modern education to Muslim women. But there is more to this argument, some things to be explored, some to be re-interpreted.
This article, therefore, attempts to trace the genesis and trajectory of women’s educational reform in Aligarh through the profile of a woman reformer – Waheed Jahan (1886-1939), wife of Shaikh Abdullah (1874-1965), and the co-founder of Aligarh’s first girls’ school. Waheed Jahan was a pioneer of Muslim women’s education at Aligarh in the early twentieth century. Her role in ending the relative isolation of Indian Muslim women, while at the same time preserving the Muslim identity of the community, is worthwhile to recall. Her biography was published in Urdu by her husband in 1954. [1]
The educational reforms among Indian women were mostly started by men. Such men started with writings advocating women’s education. In this regard, among Muslims, Nazir Ahmad (1833-1912) published his novel, Mirat-ul-Arus, in 1869; Altaf Hussain Hali (1837-1914) published Majlis-un-Nissa, in 1874. Soon, magazines and journals followed, like the Tahzib un-Niswan by Sayyid Mumtaz Ali (1860-1935), the Khatoon by Shaikh Abdullah and Waheed Jahan, and the Ismat by Rashid-ul- Khairi (1868-1936). Gail Minault regards these as ’The Big Three.’ [2] Apart from literary activism, others tried more practical measures, like opening schools for Muslim girls.
As the movement intensified, so did the opposition against it. In such an atmosphere, even the talk of women’s education by a woman herself was quite a chivalry.
Yet, unexpectedly, there were women who defied the odds and broke the ground. Rashid-un-Nissa of Patna, became the first Muslim woman to write an Urdu novel, Islah-un-Nissa in 1881 (published in 1894), when writing was a distant dream for Muslim women. Rokeya Sakhawat Husain (1880-1932), a widow herself, pioneered Muslim women’s education in Bengal. Muhammadi Begam (1878-1908) edited one of the leading ladies’ home journals, Tahzib-un-Niswan. One such icon of women’s education at Aligarh was Waheed Jahan.
Waheed was born in 1874 in a landholding family in Delhi. Her father Mirza Ibrahim Beg was of Mughal ancestry, serving as a minor municipal official in Delhi. Her only brother, Bashir Mirza went to the Mohammadan Anglo-Oriental College (MAO Colege), Aligarh, where he befriended Shaikh Abdulla (a Kashmiri convert to Islam, named Thakur Das before conversion).
As was the custom, Waheed received no formal schooling. She learnt Urdu and Persian from her father and arithmetic and elementary English from a visiting English tutoress.
Ismat Chughtai, in her autobiography, Kagazi hai Pairahan, records, how Waheed Jahan, before her marriage, had dreamt of establishing a school for the girls. She would gather the servants’ children and teach them, and soon the rudimentary school became popular among her neighbours. It is noteworthy that, at a time when others (mostly men) were still imagining a school for girls (that too only in their writings), Waheed, in her own limited capacity, was practically making a difference.
In 1902, Waheed married Shaikh Abdullah – a lawyer at Aligarh, and an ardent supporter of women’s education since his school days. Following the marriage to a woman with some education, he began to consider concrete ways to promote Muslim women’s education. The Mohammadan Education Conference (MEC, founded at Aligarh by Sir Syed Ahmad in 1886) had established a Women’s Education Section (WES) in 1896 to start a Normal School for girls and to train female (zenana) teachers. In 1902, Shaikh became the secretary of WES, which by then had merely achieved anything beyond discussions and debates around women’s education.
Luckily, Waheed’s marriage to a reformist like Abdullah helped her materialize her dream. To champion women’s education, they started an Urdu monthly, the Khatoon, in 1904 with Waheed Jahan as editor. Begum Sultan Jahan (1858-1930) of Bhopal, Binnat Nazir-al-Baqir, Suharwardiya Begum, and Binnat Nasiruddin Haider were some important female contributors to the journal.
The paucity of funds made it impossible to start a Normal School. Waheed Jahan advised her husband to start a primary school for the elite (Sharif) girls. In 1904, the Mohammadan Educational Conference passed a resolution to start a girls’ school in Aligarh. Waheed proved to be an efficient manager and fund-raiser for the cause.
Her capacities as a fund-raiser and organizer were displayed in 1905, when she organized a meeting of Muslim women in Aligarh, with participants from far corners of Lahore and Bombay. Judging from the context of the time when purdah among Muslims was so harsh, even the idea of organizing such an event was quite revolutionary.
Aware of women education in Turkey and Egypt and its benefits to society, she tried to convince other women; she said:
When women meet among themselves, there will be more solidarity. . . Now there is a division between educated and uneducated women. Uneducated women, who do not go out, think that respectability is confined to the four walls of their houses. They think that people who live beyond those walls are not respectable and not worthy of meeting. But God has ordained education for both men and women, so that such useless ideas can be dispensed with. . . [3]
The meeting was a success, the exhibition of women’s craft secured good funds; finally, the women passed a resolution favouring a girls’ school in Aligarh. In October 1906, Aligarh Zenana Madrasa (girls’ school) opened its doors, and seventeen students were enrolled. Urdu, arithmetic, needlework, and the Quran formed the curriculum. Leaving her own children in servants’ care, Waheed took the responsibility of supervising the school. Within six months, the number of students increased to fifty-six. Waheed’s efforts secured the school a cumulative grant of Rs. 15,000 and a monthly grant of Rs. 250. By 1909, the school taught 100 students and shifted to a larger building.
The opposition to girls’ school took new forms. One amusing story is recorded in Shaikh Abdullah’s Urdu memoir (1969), Mushahedaat o Taaassuraat. [4] Maintaining purdah, the girls were carried in daulis (curtained carriages) to school, and some street urchins started harassing the school going girls by lifting the curtains of their daulis. The mischief only stopped when Shaikh gave one of the miscreants a good thrashing. In another incident, Shaikh confronted a tehsildar who had accused the school of making the girls insolent.
When the Abdullahs proposed a girls’ boarding school, it invited opposition from elite corners. The European principal of MAO College, W.A.J Archbold; Ziauddun Ahmad (1873-1947); and Viqar-ul-Mulk (1841-1917) opposed vehemently.
The couple, however, succeeded in 1914, witnessing the transformation of the school into a boarding school. The same year saw the culmination of Muslim women’s activism by the foundation of Anjuman-i-Khavatin-i-Islam (AKI) at the same venue. Begum Sultan Jahan (1858-1930) of Bhopal graced the foundational ceremony of the boarding school, felicitating Waheed; she urged other women to follow her example. Fyzee sisters, Abru Begum, Begum Shafi, and Begum Shah Nawaz were the other dignitaries.
The Begum was already active in various social and educational reform projects. She served as the first chancellor of AMU from 1920 until her death in 1930. Having a woman as the first chancellor was indeed a historic feat.
Only nine girls became the residents, most of them from Waheed’s own family. By the end of the year, the enrollment rose up to twenty-five. This was the result of what the historian Gail Minault calls as Abdullahs’ portrayal of girls’ school as an extension of girls’ families and also of their own. To make the school successful, Waheed used to invite the parents of girls to Aligarh, for a few days stay in the hostel, to convince them that the conditions there were safe enough to let their daughters stay, records Sheikh Abdullah, in his Mushahedaat o Taaassuraat. She supervised everything – housekeeping, laundry, shopping, and even tasted each dish cooked for the girls.
It could be said that Waheed Jahan acted as a foster mother to these girls, counselling, nursing, and treating them as a part of her own extended family. They called each other as Apa (sister), Shaikh Abdullah as Papa Mian, and Waheed Jahan as Ala Bi. This created a sense of sisterhood among the girls.
This familial system of ethos still remains unique to the Aligarh Women’s College.
The boarding school project contained other complex problems, such as maintaining proper purdah. Both Shaikh and Waheed agreed that the purdah practiced in the Sharif society was more restrictive than purdah sanctioned by the Shari’a (Islamic Law). But to secure social acceptance for their school, they chose to go with strict purdah, building fortress-like walls to fend off the male gaze, students’ mails were scrutinized, and only close relatives were allowed inside.
This accommodation of purdah within the gamut of their reformist agenda, to gain social acceptance, was indeed very astute of the Abdullahs. Thus, Waheed Jahan succeeded in preserving both the elite and the “Muslim” identity of herself and her community while simultaneously breaking the relative isolation of Indian Muslim women. The girls’ school became an intermediate college in 1925 and started degree classes in 1937 (with 250 students). Waheed passed away in 1939, only after seeing her school becoming a degree college.
The relation between education and social change is complex, varying from culture to culture and among different classes in the same culture.
True, that Aligarh movement was late to include women’s education in its fold. Even the school founded by the Abdullahs did not fulfil all its expectations – their choosing an exclusively elite (Sharif) clientele limited the impact of their reforms.
But their efforts indeed bore fruits; the educational reforms for Muslim women at Aligarh contributed to many social developments. After the formation of AKI in 1914, the number of meetings and associations (for women-only) increased rapidly in the 1930’s. The growth in the number of educated women created a market for new publications for and by women.
The Aligarh Women’s College produced many women of substance, who made sure to shine above and beyond purdah, some figuratively and others literally. These ladies excelled in various fields, from teaching to medicine to writing.
Rashid Jahan, Waheed Jahan’s daughter, became a successful physician, a radical writer, and a staunch communist. Her short stories in Angare (1932) became the opening salvo of the Urdu Progressive Writers Movement (1936). Rakhshanda Jalil, in her biographical work on Rashid, A Rebel and her Cause: The Life and Work of Rashid Jahan, writes that Angare was a “document of disquiet”; a self-conscious attempt “to shock people out of their inertia, to show how hypocrisy and sexual oppression had so crept in everyday life”. Rashid became an inspiration for a generation of women writers such as Ismat Chughtai, Attia Hosain, Sadia Begum Sohravi, and Razia Sajjad Zaheer, among others.
Like all other reform movements of that time period, the Aligarh movement had its limitations too. For a start, it did prioritize men’s education over women’s, for various reasons (a story that needs to be told elsewhere), but by the early twentieth century, things were changing. The Aligarh movement not only took up the cause of women’s education actively, but it also let women (Like Wahid Jahan) be a part of the process.
Notes
[1] Shaikh Abdullah, Savanih-i- Umri-i- Abdullah Begum, Aligarh, 1954
[2] Gail Minault, Gender, Language, and Learning: Essays in Indo-Muslim Cultural History, Permanent Black Publications, Ranikhet, 2009, p. 87
(Ishrat Mushtaq is PhD Candidate, Centre of Advanced Study in History, Aligarh Muslim University and Sajad Hassan Khan is PhD. Candidate, Centre of Advanced Study in History, Aligarh Muslim University. Article courtesy: Mainstream Weekly.)
Janata Weekly does not necessarily adhere to all of the views conveyed in articles republished by it. Our goal is to share a variety of democratic socialist perspectives that we think our readers will find interesting or useful. —Eds.
source: http://www.janataweekly.org / Janata Weekly / Home / by Ishrat Mushtaq and Saad Hassan Khan / January 24th, 2021
In a time when women were relegated to the home and the hearth, and their dreams resigned to those of little other than a committed marriage and devout motherhood, Waheed Jahan Begum proved that women could want more for themselves.
Throughout India’s modern history in the struggle for women’s rights, many Indian reformers have gravitated towards upholding the crusade for women’s education as their foremost priority. For the everyday individual, the topic of women’s education tends to bring to mind a few notable Indian reformers who fought for women’s rights to pursue an education, albeit the large majority of these names are of men.
Throughout India’s modern history in the struggle for women’s rights, many Indian reformers have gravitated towards upholding the crusade for women’s education as their foremost priority. For the everyday individual, the topic of women’s education tends to bring to mind a few notable Indian reformers who fought for women’s rights to pursue an education, albeit the large majority of these names are of men.
Jyotirao Phule’s wife, Savitribai, was responsible for opening the first school for girls in the Indian subcontinent, yet her contributions and accomplishments are often accredited to their union than to her alone, and she is often overlooked for her importance to the movement while her husband is remembered by history as one of the leading reformers for it.
Similarly, in the union between Sheikh Abdullah and Waheed Jahan Begum, we see an identical dichotomy emerge as the husband rises to prominence for his contributions to women’s rights movements, while the wife is remembered only as his counterpart, or inspiration.
Source: Book Women Education by Dr Nasreen Ahmad
Today we understand the importance of education in the lives of modern women, as a means to achieve financial independence in a patriarchal set-up that favours women as being financially dependent on their fathers, and later, their husbands. But despite the well-established variety of schools and colleges for women we have in India today, it was not always as such and the story of the path to women’s education would be incomplete without the role played by Waheed Jahan Begum.
An early educator
Waheed Jahan Begum was the youngest daughter born to Mirza Mohammad Ibrahim Beg, a minor municipal official, in a landholding family from Delhi in 1874. Though she did not have the means to pursue formal schooling, her father personally ensured she would be fluent in Urdu and Persian, while also hiring English tutors to provide her with an understanding of arithmetic and elementary English.
She subtly began to implement her lifelong dream to start a school for girls in her surroundings growing up, by gathering up the houseworkers’ children and teaching them. Through this method, she succeeded at establishing one of the first concerted efforts at providing girls with an education in a group setting, akin to a school. She attempted to make education accessible to girls within her locality, regardless of their background, at a time when few others were able to say the same.
In one simple gesture, she managed to lay down the foundations upon which she built her career from the ground up.
Source: Aligarh Muslim University
But as a single Muslim woman in the Indian subcontinent, it would have been nearly impossible to single-handedly bring about concrete change.
Sheikh Abdullah, however, was a Kashmiri lawyer who was a prominent leader in the Aligarh Movement, which encouraged the Muslim youth to pursue a modern English education. Though many in the movement rejected Muslim women’s right to an education as well, Sheikh Abdullah represented one of the few men in the movement who was outspoken regarding the need to educate girls and women. This made him a suitable candidate for Waheed Jahan Begum to partner with in her pursuit of fighting the cause for women’s education. They also later had five daughters and a son together.
Creating a class of well educated muslim women
On marrying Sheikh Abdullah, Waheed Jahan Begum encouraged him in his quest to appeal to the issue of women’s education to the masses. Together, the couple concluded that female teachers needed to be trained to impart education to young girls.
While Sheikh Abdullah took up the matter of women’s education in front of the Muslim Education Conference and was subsequently elected secretary of the Female Education Section, Waheed Jahan Begum became editor of an Urdu monthly, Khatoon, that the couple began publishing in 1904 to further the cause of women’s education. Additionally, they opened a primary school for the elite populace of Muslim girls.
Waheed Jahan Begum also hosted meetings among educated Muslim women from across the country to champion the advantages and benefits of women’s education in the country, consequently securing funding for establishing a girls’ school.
Sheikh Abdullah with his daughters, son-in-law and grandchildren
However, Waheed Jahan Begum’s secular approach to women’s education growing up proved to be difficult to maintain going forward into her professional life as her lifelong goal to establish a school for girls proved to be a challenge amongst those in charge.
As when the couple then moved on to start a primary school for girls on various disciplines relevant to the education of Muslim women, including Urdu, the Quran, arithmetic, and needlework, it was restricted to the daughters of elite families who could afford to educate their girls. Additionally, though the school opened with only seven students in 1906, it grew over the years to accommodate around a hundred students in 1909.
This, however, did not come without its societal dangers, as the girls enrolled in the school faced harassment from the local boys and men in the process of travelling from their homes to the school in curtained carriages. This led to their families pulling them out of school once they reached puberty.
To counteract the threats posed to the girls in their travels, the couple then proceeded with, and succeeded at, pushing for the opening of a boarding school for girls. Leaving her children to be overseen by houseworkers’, Waheed Jahan Begum committed herself to establish the boarding school within the paradigm of a family structure, taking care of each of the girls enrolled in the boarding school as though they were her daughter.
From personally overseeing each aspect of the daily lives of her pupils regarding housekeeping, laundry, and shopping, she would even go as far as inviting the families of the girls to stay in the hostels for a few days to assure them of the safety of the boarding school and to secure their trust.
In addition to such measures, strict purdah was enforced in the form of walls built around the facility to garner social acceptance from the Muslim elite, though both husband and wife agreed on the restrictive nature of purdah. Their battle for women’s education was riddled with compromises and concessions made which reveal the complexities of the arena of women’s education within the given historical context, as families would assign greater value to their daughters’ “honour” than their education as the former kept them marriageable. The latter held little weightage to their prospects in the market.
A legacy to look upto
By the time Waheed Jahan Begum passed away in 1939, the boarding school had developed into a women’s college which offered several degree courses.
Waheed Jahan Begum turned her dreams into reality, by handing down the gift of education to a new generation of Muslim women, with the women’s college she opened with her husband now boasting a strength of around 40,000 students and counting. Students travel from across the world to study at the college she opened back in the days when even moderately educated women were few and far between.
Source: Aligarh Muslim University
To have achieved such a lasting change in the sphere of women’s education is no small feat, and while it is bleak to confront how little ability women have to bring forth a change within their material reality without the support of the progressive men in their lives, such as their husbands or fathers, it would altogether be impossible to bring to fruition without the hard work of inspiring women such as Waheed Jahan Begum.
She paved the way for the first steps to be taken in the emancipation of Muslim women in the Indian subcontinent, she believed in the power of education as a stepping stone to liberation from traditionalism which would have women confined to the knowledge of the four walls of their husband’s home and little of the vast world that lay beyond.
As a woman who sacrificed so much of her freedom to dedicate her life to striving for the progress of future generations of Muslim women, she is deserving of recognition beyond her role as a supportive and ingenious partner to Sheikh Abdullah as he set the wheels in motion for women’s education within Muslim society at large.
In a time when women were relegated to the home and the hearth, and their dreams resigned to those of little other than a committed marriage and devout motherhood, Waheed Jahan Begum proved that women could want more for themselves, and for women at large, by leaving their mark on history in their words and actions, to inspire and leave room for future generations of women to add on to their legacy and change the world we live in, bit by bit.
source: http://www.feminisminindia.com / Feminism in India – FII / Home / by Tanya Roy / January 13th, 2023
Begum Qudsia Aizaz Rasul was one of the 28 Muslim League members to join the Constituent Assembly of undivided India, and she was the only Muslim woman to be a part of the assembly.
Begum Qudsia Aizaz Rasul was born to the royal family of Malerkotla (situated in erstwhile united Punjab) on 4th April, 1908. Her father was Nawab Zulfiqar Ali Khan. Qudsia had a progressive upbringing and was encouraged from a very early age to lead a modern life, as opposed to several stringent restrictions imposed upon other contemporary Muslim women, such as that of the purdah.
She got married at quite an early age to Nawaab Aizaz Rasul from the erstwhile province of Awadh. Her husband held the position of a taluqdar, or a landowner. Qudsia had political exposure both before and after marriage, and her formal political participation took place after she got married.
Qudsia, along with her husband, joined the Muslim League in mid-1930s, soon after the passing of theGovernment of India Act in 1935. This was also her official entry into electoral politics, as she contested in the elections of 1937 from the U.P. legislative assembly, where she successfully held her seat till 1952. Aizaz was one of the very few female candidates to have contested and won from a non-reserved constituency during the pre-independent times.
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She was the first Indian woman to achieve such feats, and this was truly commendable and noteworthy at a time when most formal political positions were almost implicitly reserved for men.
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As an MLA, she also held several important posts, such as the Leader of Opposition (1950 to 1952) and the Deputy President of the Council (1937 to 1940). She was the first Indian woman to achieve such feats, and this was truly commendable and noteworthy at a time when most formal political positions were almost implicitly reserved for men. Moreover, to rise to prominence at a politically significant province such as the U.P. indeed made Qudsia Aizaz Rasul a trailblazer.
She is well known for her progressive, anti-feudal stances, such as the abolition of the zamindari system. Qudsia was a strong advocate for the abolition of communal electorates as well, as she believed it divided the society more than it united – which was counterproductive for the Indian electoral candidates at a time when there was an urgent need of a united Indian front to oppose the colonial rulers. She went on to create a strong and convincing case for the abolition of electoral reservations for religious minorities during her tenure as a member of the Constituent Assembly.
Qudsia was one of the 28 Muslim League members to join the Constituent Assembly of undivided India, and she was the only Muslim woman to be a part of the assembly. Her contributions in the assembly debates remain monumental till date and have been recorded in many official sources.
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Her contributions in the assembly debates remain monumental till date, and have been recorded in many official sources.
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After the dissolution of the League, she joined the Indian National Congress, and served as a member of the Rajya Sabha from 1952 to 1958. Later, she became a member of the legislative assembly of Uttar Pradesh from 1969 to 1989.
Other Achievements
Begum Qudsia Aizaz Rasul is also well known for her autobiography, titled From Purdah to Parliament: A Muslim Woman in Indian Politics. It provides excellent insights into the intersectional aspects of organised politics as it functions in our country. Other than this, she also wrote a travelogue titled Three Weeks in Japan.
Besides her literary prowess, Qudsia had also served as the President of the Indian Women Hockey Federation for over fifteen years, and went on to become the President of the Asian Women’s Hockey Federation.
Begum Qudsia Aizaz Rasul was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2000 for immense, invaluable contributions to the field of social work.
Sultana Saleem was one of the officers of Azad Hind Fauj, or INA, of Subhas Chandra Bose.
It is a concise compilation of a few of less known Muslim women who took part in the Indian Freedom Struggle.
Begum Mahboob Fatima: On 13 April 1932, two women were arrested at Chandni Chowk in Delhi by the police for commemorating the anniversary of the massacre at Jallianwala Bagh. These two were Begum Mahboob Fatima and Satyawati. On 21 April 1932, Begum Mahboob was sentenced for six months of Rigorous Imprisonment and Rupees 50 of fine. With this she became the first Muslim woman to have been sentenced during the freedom struggle in Delhi.
Sultana Saleem: Sultana Saleem was one of the officers of Azad Hind Fauj, or INA, of Subhas Chandra Bose. Her husband Colonel Saleem, whom she met during the war, also served the INA and Sultana was an officer of Rani Jhansi Regiment. Sultana reached India as part of the first contingent of captured soldiers of Rani of Jhansi Regiment in February 1946. The Indian Express reported on 22 February 1946, “Mrs Sleem felt that there was only one country for her- Hindusthan – and only one nation – Hindustani. She did not believe in either communalism or provincialism. It was the oneness of India that appealed to her most. In East Asia, she said there was no consciousness at all of religious or provincial differences and no untouchability problem. She believed that if India had freedom her many problems could be solved without much difficulty.”
Asghuri Begum: In 1857, when somewhere else Rani of Jhansi and Begum Hazrat Mahal were fighting against the colonial army of the English East India Company, in Muzaffarnagar and Shamli, peasant women had organised themselves in armed bands. The leader was Asghuri Begum. The region had been liberated by the Indian revolutionaries where the women contingent was being led by Asghuri. When Major Sawyer conquered Thana Bhawan, a town in Shamli, in October 1857, Asghuri was also captured. British troops tied her to a pole at a public place and set fire to her alive.
Nishat-un-Nisa: “I appeal to the youth of this country that they sit at the feet of this goddess (Nishat un Nisa Begum) to learn the lessons of independence and perseverance.” These were the words of famous Urdu poet Pandit Brij Narayan Chakbast. Nishat was the first Muslim woman to address a Congress Session and that too without a purdah. Hasrat Mohani, who coined Inquilab Zinadabad, was her husband. Nishat attended the public political meetings without her husband. She wrote articles, led delegations to Viceroy, participated in strikes and was the first woman to move a resolution for complete independence at a Congress session.
Saadat Bano: Saadat Bano whose husband Saifuddin Kitchlew is known as the hero of Jallianwala Bagh was a writer, poet and political activist much before her marriage. She wrote extensively for women rights, patriotism and education. It is a well known fact that people gathered at Jallianwala on 13 April 1919 to protest the arrest of Saifuddin but it is often overlooked that they came to listen to a public address by Saadat. Saifuddin was in jail but Saadat did not sit at home in those times. She used to address meetings, meet political leaders, attend Congress sessions, write in papers and take part in All India Women Conference activities. She was considered orator par excellence.
Amjadi Begum: How important a person would be if Gandhi himself wrote in one of his articles that this ‘brave woman’ led the ‘fundraising campaigns’ from the front ? Almost no history student in India knows Amjadi Begum. They know her as the wife of Maulana Muhammad Ali Jauhar. Gandhi in one of his articles wondered whether she could teach her husband the art of public oratory, where one impressed upon the hearts of the audience in a few words. She is believed to have single handedly led the fundraising campaigns and managed affairs of Jamia Millia Islamia when her husband was in prison.
Moondar: Rani of Jhansi’s movement had an important Muslim woman, viz. Moondar. She was a close aide and assisted her during battles. Robert Hamilton, agent of Governor General to Central India, informed the British government on 30 October 1858, “Rani was riding a horse. There was another Muslim woman riding with her, who used to be her servant as well as companion since many years. Both fell down from the horse with the bullet wounds simultaneously.” Another British officer John Venables Sturt claimed that the body recovered by the British was not of Rani but Moondar’s.
Nani Hakko: Nani Hakko was a jolaha (weaver) woman from Panipat who was impressed by Mahatma Gandhi’s idea of boycott and swadeshi. The she first heard him, Hakko started weaving her own shroud. She willed to be buried in a khadi shroud. When someone asked her what she was weaving, she would reply, ““I am weaving a kafan (shroud) for myself”.
Hakko left this world only the day after completing this khaddar ka kafan. She asked people to bury her in this handwoven shroud (khaddar ka kafan) and boycotted the foreign made cloth even in her death. According to Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, she was the first person to have been buried in khaddar ka kafan as a result of Gandhi’s call to charkha. Khwaja wrote, “she was the first one to be buried in a khaddar ka kafan — a patriot unto death!”
source: http://www.heritagetimes.in / Heritage Times / Home / by Saquib Salim / March 08th, 2025
Arshad Shaikh digs into some amazing facts about the Mewat region in the Indian state of Haryana, which was recently in the news for the wrong reasons. Meo-Muslims have been targeted by cow-vigilantes and anti-social elements. Communal violence rocked the region last week. Six people lost their lives, scores were seriously injured, thousands were arrested and many houses were controversially demolished. The Hindu-Muslim violence in the Mewat region was extensively covered by the media, however, not many know about some of the amazing facts of this region and how it is emblematic of the denial and deprivation that Muslims have suffered in post-Independence India.
Mewat (now officially re-named as Nuh) is a Muslim-majority district in the state of Haryana. The Mewat district was established in 2005, through the incorporation of regions from Gurgaon district and the Hathin Block of Faridabad district.
Nonetheless, in 2008, the Hathin sub-division underwent restructuring with the formation of Palwal district. In 2016, Mewat district’s name was changed to Nuh, given that Mewat represents a cultural area that extends across Haryana, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh states. Mewat (Nuh) is located in the southern part of Haryana. It is one of the 22 districts of Haryana.
The region is bordered by the Aravalli Range to the north, the Gurgaon district to the northeast, the Alwar district of Rajasthan to the south, the Bharatpur district of Rajasthan to the southwest, and the Palwal district of Haryana to the west.
The following Table compares the district of Mewat (now known as Nuh) with the entire state of Haryana:
Variable
Haryana
Nuh district
Comparison
Area
44,212 sq km (17,070 sq miles)
1,860 sq km (720 sq miles)
4.2% of the state
Population
25,351,462
1,089,263
4.2% of the state
% of Rural population
65.12%
95.36%
Shows the degree of neglect by successive governments
% of Urban population
34.88%
4.64%
Sex ratio (number of females per 1000 males)
926/1000
907/1000
19 less than state sex ratio (this is surprising, given that Mewat is a Muslim-majority district and Islam strictly prohibits any preference for male children)
Literacy
75.55%
54.08%
21% behind the state, again highlights a problem that poses a challenge to both the government and the community
Hindu versus Muslim population
Hindu (87.46%)Muslim (7.06%)
Hindu (20.3%) Muslim (79.2%)
Mewat is one of the few districts in India with a Muslim population close to 80%
Legislature: Mewat has three Haryana Vidhan Sabha constituencies: Nuh, Ferozepur Jhirka and Punhana. All three are parts of the Gurgaon Lok Sabha constituency.
Roads: There are currently 5 national highways in the Mewat region of Haryana. The Delhi Mumbai Expressway will pass through the Mewat region. This expressway will connect Delhi and Mumbai via Manesar, Gurugram, Sohna, Nuh, and Palwal.
History: Mewat was once a princely state, ruled by the Meo Rajputs. The Meos are a Muslim Rajput tribe who are believed to have migrated to the region from Rajasthan in the 12th century. In the 16th century, Mewat was conquered by the Mughal Empire. The Mughals ruled Mewat for over 300 years, until the decline of the Mughal Empire in the 18th century.
In the 18th century, Mewat was conquered by the Maratha Empire. The Marathas ruled Mewat for about 50 years, until the British East India Company conquered Mewat in 1803. The British ruled Mewat until Indian Independence in 1947. After Independence, Mewat became a part of the state of Haryana.
Here are some not-so-well-known facts and “figures” from the Mewat region in India:
Raja Hasan Khan Mewati, a Khanzada Rajput ruler, held dominion over Mewat as a Muslim leader. He succeeded his father, Raja Alawal Khan, in a dynasty that had governed the Mewat State for approximately two centuries. He undertook the reconstruction of the Alwar Fort during the 15th century. In a significant historical event, he allied himself with 5,000 compatriots from the Rajput Confederation and participated in the Battle of Khanwa. Tragically, he met his demise on the battlefield, confronting the Mughal forces commanded by Babur.
Firuz Khan Mewati was a Mughal commander who served under the emperor Bahadur Shah I. He was born in Mewat in the 17th century and is known for his bravery and military prowess. He was also a skilled diplomat and administrator.
The Tablighi Jamaat was established in 1926 by Maulana Muhammad Ilyas al-Kandhlawi, in the Mewat region. According to community historian Siddique Ahmed Meo (as reported in the Hindustan Times) – “People from Mewat would travel to Delhi for work and halt for lunch near the masjid in Nizamuddin, before proceeding ahead with the journey. Maulana Ilyas took notice of the labourers and enquired about them one day. Through conversations with the Meos, he realised that while they were Muslims, they did not have a good understanding of Islamic practices.
“Driven by his interactions with Meos in Nizamuddin, Maulana Ilyas visited Ferozepur Namak in Mewat for the first time in 1925. He started surveying the region and over subsequent visits, he came to the understanding that Meo-Muslims needed to be introduced to Islamic practices and brought back into the fold. A panchayat was called in Nuh and a charter consisting of names of 103 people was shared. Some 31 proposals aimed at laying the groundwork for the Jamaat were passed in that panchayat. Finally, in 1926, the Jamaat started undertaking trips to reach out to people and spread the message of Islam.”
The Mewati Gharana is a Hindustani classical music tradition that was founded in the late 19th century by Ustad Ghagge Nazir Khan. The gharana is named after the Mewat region of India, where Ustad Ghagge Nazir Khan was born and raised. The Mewati Gharana is known for its emphasis on purity of tone, intricate taans, and expressive singing.
The gharana also has a unique style of khayal singing, which is characterised by its use of subtle ornamentation and its focus on the emotional content of the lyrics. Some of the most famous vocalists of the Mewati Gharana include Pandit Jasraj, Pandit Maniram, and Pandit Pratapnarayan. Pandit Jasraj is considered one of the greatest khayal singers of all time, and he helped to popularise the Mewati Gharana around the world.
Mewati Martial Art is a traditional martial art that originated in the Mewat region of India. It is a combination of wrestling, boxing, and stick fighting. Mewati martial arts are known for its emphasis on self-defence and its focus on using the opponent’s strength against them. Mewati martial art was further developed in the 17th century, when the Mewat region was ruled by the Mughals. This led to a fusion of Mewati martial arts with Mughal martial arts, which resulted in the development of the modern form of Mewati martial arts.
source: http://www.radiancenews.com / Radiance News / Home> Amazing Facts / by Arshad Shaikh / Radiance News Bureau / September 01st, 2023
Marathi actor Kiran Mane has sparked widespread discussion with a social media post highlighting an overlooked aspect of history—the compassion of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb’s daughter, Zeenat-un-Nissa, towards Chhatrapati Shahu Maharaj.
Mane revealed that Zeenat-un-Nissa played a crucial role in raising Shahu Maharaj and ensuring the well-being of his mother, Maharani Yesubai, during their captivity, reported the INN.
According to Mane, after Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj was executed, his five-year-old son, Shahu Maharaj, was taken prisoner by the Mughals. Despite the captivity, Zeenat-un-Nissa treated Shahu Maharaj like her own son and cared for Maharani Yesubai as a sister. This humane side of Aurangzeb’s daughter, often ignored in historical narratives, is now being recognized through Mane’s revelations.
Mane further shared that, in gratitude for her kindness, Shahu Maharaj later constructed the historic Begum Mosque in Satara, naming it after Zeenat-un-Nissa. The mosque stands as a testament to her generosity and the bond that transcended political hostilities.
His post has ignited debate on social media, with many expressing surprise at this lesser-known chapter of history. Mane also criticized historians who have misrepresented Zeenat-un-Nissa’s role, urging people to acknowledge historical truths backed by evidence.
Zeenat-un-Nissa was known for her compassion toward the poor and underprivileged, which even influenced her father, Aurangzeb, to grant her the title of Padshahi Begum. Her charitable works and humane nature set her apart, making her an inspiring figure in an era marked by conflicts.
At the time of Chhatrapati Sambhaji’s death, Shahu Maharaj was still a child, and his mother was held captive. Despite the circumstances, Zeenat-un-Nissa’s care left a lasting impact, prompting Shahu Maharaj to honor her memory through the construction of Begum Mosque, which still stands in Satara today.
source: http://www.radiancenews.com / Radiance News / Home> Latest News> Report / by Radiance News Bureau / March 09th, 2025
